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Ellen Ripley
Skills Not being entirely human, Ripley-8 has many skills that her original human form did not possess as well as the skills and experiences passed down through memory to her from the original Ellen Ripley. Her more human skills start with that of a leader, she knows how to talk to people, how to command and lead when everything else is falling down around her. Ripley always steps up the plate. Having said that she can and does follow orders extremely well too, she works well in teams and groups of people. But she's not an infallible leader, she does make mistakes. They are always genuine though and never calculated, she always does what she thinks is for the best of everyone. Ripley also shows an aptitude for negotiation which originally led to her landing her the job of Lieutenant aboard the Nostromo. She also has an extensive knowledge of piloting various classes of spacecraft, though her particular area tends to be within the confines of the 22nd Century, nevertheless she adapts fasts and knows her way around computer systems enough to get by if something is more modern than she is. Ripley is a very practical woman and can and will use anything she can get her hands on for her own survival, including using guns and weapons, and if you're really unlucky a basketball. She's previously shown expertise with everything from flame throwers to pulse rifles, incinerator units and harpoon guns and can also work an exo-suit cargo-loader so technology is rarely an issue for her. Human skills aren't the only thing she has though, she has inherited a mixed DNA from the cloning process, making her a stable balance of human DNA and Xenomorph, this gives her many further talents she never had before. The most obvious would be that of her blood. Though it remains dark red in colour and is a watered down version of the yellow-blood of a Xenomorph, her blood is nevertheless still very dangerous. Similar in reaction to acid, her blood will burn easily though skin, metal, glass, plastic, rubber and clothing. Her own body goes undamaged by the blood as much like a stomach protecting itself from being digested, there is a fluid that protects her against the effects. This makes it quite risky and dangerous to attack her at close range as a simple splash of her blood could eat away at the weapon and the attacker alike. Any substances resistant to acids will still be resistant to her blood too though. Ripley also has rapid cell regeneration and heals extraordinarily fast after injuries, though the time varies on what the injury actually is, she also doesn't appear to compute pain exactly and certainly doesn't react to it at all, for example she was once hit in the face with a metal weight-lifters barbell and all it did was give her a small nosebleed and otherwise didn't appear to affect her. Minor injuries such as being stabbed or shot at literally take seconds to heal, as soon as the weapon is removed her skin seals up around it. However more serious injuries such as operations and breakages take increasingly longer to heal up entirely, but everything from her bones to her skin simply seals itself back up again. The only way to stop that from happening would be to leave the weapon where it was (however eventually her blood would eat through the implement), even hacking her limbs off wouldn't work as she would eventually grow them back much as Xenomorphs do. However taking her head off would surely kill her, but unless it was at long range it would probably also acid burn the attacker to death too. She also displays a superior to human level of strength and endurance. Her abilities extend as far as being able to run extremely fast for a long time without getting breathless, jump long distances and heights given a fair run up for distance. She can also remain underwater for extended periods of time with little struggle, though this is limited as she does require oxygen to breath she adapts very quickly to different environments. She is also strong enough to be plenty capable of using her bare hands to punch and rip through solid metal and lift heavy things that would take a couple of normal humans to lift. Her bone structure is also far denser than a normal human beings and things like her teeth and her nails are fully fused to her skeletal system which makes them extremely strong too. Ripley also has genetic memory passed down to her through the DNA of the Xenomorphs, this connects her to the hive and if there is a Queen nearby she instinctively empathises with her. Ripley can hear and communicate with other Xenomorphs from distances of miles, she can understand their motives and emotions and this quickly makes her very sympathetic to them when she is nearby. It also often makes her very oblivious to what is actually going on around her if she is listening to them. In Pandora this will be very limited to how long the Queen Face Hugger will last as that is her only current connection to them. Xenomorphs aren't the only thing she can sense though. Much like sharks she possesses the ability to sense the bio-electromagnetic fields of other species, which means she can sense them even if she cannot see them. Ripley is also so attuned to her senses and instincts that she can not only hear far beyond the reach of a human, but feel and sense everything from the tiniest movement to approximating whether someone is dangerous to her or not based on animal instinct. Her weaknesses are fairly prevalent too, her most obvious weakness comes from her emotions and her sympathies and attachments. She becomes very defensive and protective of people which could very quickly be used against her as she will do anything to save the people she cares for. She also has a lot of unknown limits to herself, which in somewhere like Pandora is liable to get her into trouble a fair bit by biting off more than she can chew simply because the predator inside her believes in fight rather than flight. On a more physical side of it she is limited entirely to skills passed to her from the Xenomorphs and her strengths are slightly watered down versions of what they possess so while she is dangerous she is by no means unbeatable. Personality Ripley’s personality is very fractured, the genetic memory from her original self is constantly at war with the predator inside her now. She has a lot of broken memories from her former life and remembers flashes and glimpses of who she was and what she did, but many of them are without names and come to her in the form of dreams and nightmares. Many also get triggered by events she experiences. Seeing a little girl with blonde hair, for example, will hurt and upset her though she struggles to completely remember why. Faces come to her when she closes her eyes but she rarely remember the names associated with them or precisely who they were, but her emotions often tell her if she was close to them or not, regardless of what she remembers. When these things pop up here and there it can leave her very confused and disorientated as to who she actually is, though her brief crisis of identity is often short lived due to the inherent apathy that seeps in from the non-human side of her now and keeps her more intense emotions in check. There is a side of Ripley now that she often refers to, in the privacy of her own mind, as the ‘predator inside my head’. She refers to it as that because she doesn’t embrace it and finds it more of something to be controlled than used. Occasionally that side of her does wrestle for control, particularly when she’s is angered or threatened and when it does she behaves quite differently to normal. Even her body posture changes to something more feral and predatory almost sensually at times, she has a quick temper and is dangerously violent and very vicious, much like the behaviour of the Xenomorphs whose DNA she possesses. The older she gets the easier she finds it to control that side of her however and it rarely takes her over completely any longer. Instead Ripley tends to let out a more ‘leashed’ version of that side when she needs it. On the whole Ripley’s original personality is much stronger than that of the more instinctual predator beneath the surface that she inherited from the Xenomorphs. It regularly asserts itself whenever she has to make any difficult decisions and generally her humanity wins out. She’s a strong-willed woman who knows exactly how to take charge, remain calm and get on with what has to be done. She can make the difficult decisions that others find hard to make, even when it involves those closest to her, she always tries to do what is best for the majority not the individual. However when things get especially personal, Ripley tends to think with her heart and will risk her own life to save others, but never without a plan. She can be a little brash and lacks a few manners, her entire life was spent on cargo ships with men and as a Warrant Officer she is well used to being in the chain of command and knowing how to put people in line. She also spent some time working as a negotiator so she has very good people skills when she wants to. She’s bright and quick-thinking, very good at keeping her head in an emergency and always steps up to take charge when others won’t. She’s very resourceful and adapts quickly to her environments. There is also a softer side to Ripley, she had a daughter and the maternal side of her is very strong. She still feels a lot of residual guilt about not being there for her own daughter, Amanda, and for failing her unofficially adoptive-daughter Newt. She can’t remember her daughter’s name though and she doesn’t remember Newt’s name either, she is just very fond of kids and happily steps into a maternal role when around them. Her attachment becomes quite deep very quickly and as soon as she likes someone Ripley can become quite defensive of them. She especially seems to attach herself to outcasts and in Pandora that will quickly extend to people others have considered a ‘monster’. She believes that as one herself she understands where they’re coming from and likes to believe that just because there is a monster inside your head it doesn’t mean you have to behave like one all the time. She has a very strong dislike for a few types of people and while she struggles to pin down some of the reasoning behind her distrust it stands nevertheless. Robots are a particular issues for Ripley, she doesn’t particularly care for them and she certainly doesn’t trust them until they give her a good reason to trust them. She also finds doctors and scientists untrustworthy simply because in her experience they’ve only ever lied to her and poked her and used her as an experiment, a way to get to the Xenomorphs. The original Ripley suffered some level of PTSD after her experiences and this has passed on to Ripley-8. Her past experiences really haunt her, particularly the discovery of her seven previous clones in various stages of success. The fact that one was kept alive and treated with such little respect was really the last straw for her in trusting scientists of any kind. They have to do a lot to gain her trust now. A sarcastic sense of humour is another strong component of Ripley’s personality, she enjoys teasing people and has quite the dry wit, this coupled with her quieter side means she gets on equally well with loud bawdy people as well as quieter sorts. She doesn’t seem to have several more obvious emotions any more, things like shame and self-consciousness don’t really exist to her. She inherited this from the Xenomorphs as they don’t have any need for those sorts of things and they were never really a strong part of her personality before. Consequently it takes a lot to embarrass or genuinely shock Ripley any more and she seems to behave as though everything that does happen was inevitable in some way. Appearance Standing two inches over six foot, Ripley is clearly taller than the average human female and a few inches taller than her original self. Outwardly and at a first glance she looks mostly human. Her skin does have a richer pigment than would be normal for someone living on a spacecraft their entire life but in Pandora she simply looks like she has a healthy glow of a tan. Her eyes are dark brown and her hair is almost black and is just below shoulder length in unkempt straggles. Unlike humans she has no need to style it, brush it or wash it, like the Xenomorphs she shares her DNA with now her skin and hair constantly sheens with moisture, though admittedly nowhere near as excessively as a Xenomorph. Marring her skin she has a number ‘8’ tattooed on her arm just below the crook of her elbow indicating that she is the eighth attempt at cloning the original Ellen Ripley. She also had a large scar resulting from surgery straight down the centre of her chest over her ribcage, it is almost healed up but not entirely, odd considering she heals so quickly and possibly still there simply because she wills it to remain . Her build is strong and athletic, muscular and lean rather than skinny. As though her body shunned fat and exchanged it for sheer muscle power instead. Despite her mostly human appearance though, there are a few obvious differences to her appearance, not only her tall height for a human. First off and most obviously are her nails. Whilst they simply look like they’ve got a grey-metallic polish on them they are actually not like human fingernails at all and are infused to her skeletal structure, making them more talons or claws than nails. As such they are incredibly strong and actually grow to rounded points naturally. Another physical difference from a normal human are Ripley’s teeth. Although they appear relatively white at a first glance a closer look will reveal them to be almost silver-sheened, like glossy metallic, and these again are completely fused to her skeletal structure making them much stronger than an average humans. Her clothing choices are very simple. She doesn’t change and she has no need to, her biological system isn’t like that of a humans, she doesn’t sweat. Ripley also has no concept of fashion as it was never taught to her and the memories she inherited had nothing to do with it. She particularly favours organic fabrics, a simple flesh-coloured tank top, heavy cotton and leather trousers and a leather vest, the design of which mimics the upper torso of a Xenomorph with rounded ridges at the shoulders and more across the chest which tapers off at the waist. She doesn’t particularly favour footwear as her toughened body can happily walk barefoot without worry, but she does make use of calf-length leather boots when it suits her. Relationships History Ellen Ripley was born on January 7th in the year 2092, she was born at the Olympia Colony on Luna, which was known as the moon until the late 2050's until the United America's bought it out and created a settlement there. She grew up in a structured home, went to school, did everything she should. Even at nineteen when she had her daughter Amanda, she didn't put aside what she wanted to do with her life, instead she balanced motherhood and work in equals. She graduated Evansbrook Academy at the top of her classes in law, ethics and corporate affairs and landed herself a place in Weyland-Yutani's Horizons Beyond Officer Training program. After she negotiated the end to a hostage crisis during her training, saving 49 lives and convicting 8 terrorists she quickly completed the course and passed with honours. Many years were then spent working her way up the ranks to a Warrant Officer and Lieutenant on several Weyland-Yutani military space craft until she finally joined the crew of the USCSS Nostromo. The mission was simply to pick up cargo from Thedus, however on the journey back the Nostromo picked up a distress call from a crashed spacecraft presumed uninhabitable moon, LV-426. Their hyper-sleep interrupted the crew decided to investigate. Unfortunately Executive Officer Kane was infected with a large external parasite which he brought on board the Nostromo, it implanted an alien inside his chest which gestated and eventually erupted, killing him. It wasn't long before Ripley discovered that Weyland-Yutani had sent them there specifically to get a specimen of the alien and that the entire crew were expendable so long as the alien itself returns. Science Officer Ash, an android, was there to protect the specimen at all costs and when he discovered Ripley had found out what was going on he attempted to kill her. Chief Engineer Parker disabled him but was then killed by the alien life form as the crew tried to evacuate, leaving Ripley the only survivor to reach the shuttle and escape. Unfortunately the creature had nestled within the shuttle and Ripley was forced to blow it out of the airlock. She would then set the record for the longest ever hypersleep at 57 years. When she next awoke the world she knew was long gone, the Nostromo had been missing for decades and she had been presumed deceased along with the rest of her crew. Despite obvious symptoms of post-traumatic-stress and learning her daughter died two years before she was found, Ripley was placed in a board of enquiry as to the events aboard the Nostromo. Her account was mostly ignored as raving madness due to the fact there was a terraforming colony called Hadley's Hope already on LV-426 (now called Acheron) and no encounters had been reported. She had her flight license revoked and was forced to set up residence at the station, using loaders in the docking bay and making use of herself. A man who had befriended her, Carter J. Burke, however was more interested in her story and sent the co-ordinates of the derelict spaceship to Acheron to have it investigated. When Hadley's Hope loses contact with the Station an investigative mission is set up. Carter convinces Ripley to join him in going there by promising he would get her flight license back and ensuring her that the best Colonial Marines would be going with them. When they finally reached Hadley's Hope it was clearly deserted, however one survivor was found, a little girl, Newt. Ripley immediately took to protecting her whilst the Marines tracked down the Personal Data Transmitters of the rest of the colonists. It led them straight into a hive crawling with dozens of the creature Ripley had seen aboard the Nostromo, but despite painful memories of what had happened she nevertheless picked up the chain of command and rescued the remaining Marines. With no way off the planet as the drop ship was overrun with aliens, they were forced to remain until Bishop, an android who had accompanied the mission, could remote-pilot the second dropship. Their time was limited though as careless gunfire had set the atmospheric processor of the terraforming plant to blow. Multiple alien attacks later and fast dwindling group numbers, Ripley, with the help of Corporal Hicks made to get to the second drop-ship, inadvertently losing Newt in the process. Determined not to leave her behind though Ripley found her again beneath some metal flooring and they were in the midst of getting her out when a pack of aliens took her. Willing to go after her, knowing she would be kept alive to breed more of the creatures, Ripley had to be physically dragged to the drop-ship. As soon as she got there she ensured Hicks was alright then gathered as many guns as she could carry and ordered Bishop to drop her close to the hive, with the intention of getting Newt out. She worked her way through the fast deteriorating processing station and located Newt, saving her from a facehugger. Their escape path led them straight to the centre of the hive however and for a face to face encounter with the Queen. Knowing the creatures weren't simply animals but had intelligence and understanding too, Ripley played the mother card. Just as she would fight tooth and claw to protect Newt she knew the Queen would defend her young. She threatened an egg with a flamethrower and the Queen held back the adult aliens allowing her and Newt to pass through. However just as they were about to leave an egg hatched and Ripley made the decision to burn the lot of them and opened fire, throwing everything she had at them. Setting the nest on fire the Queen became detached from her ovipositor and quickly took off after Ripley and Newt. Knowing she had told Bishop to wait where he had dropped her off Ripley returned there only to find the ship gone. The alien Queen hot on her heels Bishop swung round and picked Ripley and Newt up from the platform, informing them it had been too unstable to remain landed there any longer. Believing they are in the clear Ripley is in the midst of admitting that for a robot Bishop did good when the Queen impaled him and ripped him in two. Using herself to distract the monster she tells Newt to run. Ripley quickly equipped herself with a cargo-loader and beat the massive creature down into the airlock just as she had done before with the first. Almost losing her own life Ripley managed to trap the Queen beneath the cargo-loader and opened the airlock, ridding them of her once and for all, but this time she wasn't the only survivor. Hicks, Newt and the still functioning, albeit broken, Bishop also made it out this time. After cleaning up they put themselves into hypersleep for the journey home. Things would never be that simple for Ripley though. Unfortunately for her the Queen left an egg aboard the ship, once the survivors were in hypersleep the egg hatched and the facehugger impregnates Ripley while she sleeps. Some of the blood it loses whilst breaking through the glass causes a fire though and the ship evacuates all the pods. They crash land on Fiorina 'Fury' 161, an outer veil mineral ore refinery and mens maximum security correctional facility. Both Newt and Hicks are killed in the crash and Bishop is rendered inoperable. The Superintendant of the facility, Harold Andrews, requests Ripley be immediately evacuated from the planet for her own safety and Weyland-Yutani agree to send a rescue crew. Meanwhile the facehugger that impregnated Ripley escapes and attacks a dog. Very shortly afterwards the alien hatches, killing the dog, and takes its first couple of victims. Suspicious that something is happening and worried she knows what, Ripley re-activated Bishop to access the flight recorder, he informs her that an alien life form was aboard the Sulaco and is now on Fiorina. More men are killed as the alien attacks and Ripley is surprised to find the alien does not attack her, because she has one growing inside her, a Queen. With a dozen or so inmates already dead Ripley is forced to take charge and come up with a plan to lure the creature through the passageways, direct to the furnaces where they can burn it in the refinery lead works. They manage to kill the alien by dumping hot lead on it then alternating with cold water on the sprinkler system, causing the alien to smash to pieces. Shortly after Weyland-Yutani rescue team arrives to evacuate Ripley, but by then she knows precisely why they are so interested in her, they want the creature inside her again. Rather than let them have it, or suffer the painful death she's seen so many people she loves die by, Ripley threw herself into the refinery furnace, taking the Queen with her as it tried to hatch out her chest. What she did not know however was that this wasn't the end. Weyland-Yutani were more determined than she could have ever imagined in wanting to get a hold of one of the aliens. They collected genetic samples of Ripley and then closed the entire facility down. Two hundred years later technology catches up enough for human clones to be made from minor samples of DNA. Aboard the top secret research vessel the USM Auriga, Ripley is cloned. There were several attempts before the eighth was successful, however the cloning process wasn't perfectly clean. Her DNA was mixed with that of the Xenomorph inside her, cloning her as a human/alien hybrid and making her highly dangerous. The Queen in her chest was removed during surgery but the mixed DNA was in her blood, literally. She matured very fast over the months she was aboard the Auriga until she began to function at an above-adult capacity despite being barely a year old. Showing a remarkable tenacity for violence as her memories seeped together with the inherent nature of the Xenomorph to kill anything not of its own kind she regularly attacked the scientists and doctors tending to her, including breaking ones wrist and almost choking the Doctor in charge, Dr. Wren, to death until she was shot with an overpowered tazer. The scientists took interest in her and taught her over the months to speak, write and behave correctly, all the while Ripley showed an intense empathy with the aliens themselves and rather smugly pointed out that everyone was going to die. She spent many hours in the recreational room, mostly shooting hoops, lifting weights, keeping herself entertained until one day a crew showed up she had never seen before. They were a group of mercenaries delivering a shipment of unknowing people to their deaths, to be impregnated by face huggers and breed more aliens. Her natural predatory instinct took over and she started a fight before being called off by the doctors and scientists and put back in her cell, where she spent most of her time listening to the hive mind of the Xenomorphs aboard the ship. However one member of the crew, Call, recognised her name and believed she may be hosting an alien and snuck into her cell to try and kill her. When she realised that the Queen was already gone it was too late, she was quickly apprehended and dragged off, leaving Ripley alone once again. She had a direct line to the Xenomorphs when they finally figured out how to escape their cages, however when given the choice Ripley was unsure if they would kill her or not, so, like everyone else she took off. Using her acidic blood and her strength she escaped her cell and disappeared into the bowels of the sip to head for an escape pod. During the mayhem unleashed by the aliens releasing the rest of their kind the majority of the Auriga crew were slaughtered, leaving behind the ragtag group of mercenaries, which Ripley caught up with, saving them from a Xenomorph by shooting it in the head and ripping its mouth out. But that wasn't their biggest problem, Ripley could feel the ship moving despite its stealth movements and Dr. Wren announces that the ships emergency procedure is to land on earth. When the surviving crew realise that if the Auriga lands on earth it will unleash the aliens onto the planet they make a plan to escape aboard the mercenaries ship, the Betty and remotely destroy the Auriga before she lands. This plan leads them through the bowels of the ship where they pick up an alien host from the stolen crew the mercenaries brought in and continue to dwindle in numbers as they get picked off one by one. Their path leads them to a sunken level that requires them to swim, Ripley has little difficulty however half way through the water two Xenomorphs appear and 'herd' them on to the other side of the water. What they find there is a trap, a tunnel full of eggs each with a facehugger inside. They begin to hatch as they sense people nearby and one launched itself, landing on Ripley and sent her straight back down into the water. She was in the midst of trying to wrestle the creature off her throat and stop it implanting an egg inside her when she felt something like ropes tighten around her entire body though she didn't see them at all, they took her and the creature attached to her straight to Pandora... Pandora History